Pharsalia

“ Now the Pharisee, while he was doubting concerning our Lord, that He was not a prophet, pledged himself to the truth unawares, in saying—Had this man been a prophet, he would have known that this woman is a sinner. Therefore, if it should be found that our Lord knew that she was a sinner, He is, according to thy word, O Pharisee, a prophet. Our Lord, therefore, hastened to show both that she was a sinner, and that her sins were many; that the testimony of his own mouth might confute him as a liar. For he was companion of those that said: Who is able to forgive sins, but God only? ”

“ Each had the defects of his qualities, but the defects of the Pharisee were, to superficial sight, of a more patent and troublesome sort than those of his rival. To be always dreadfully in earnest makes a man a distinctly uncomfortable companion. The ‘zeal’ of the Pharisees might make them pious and devout, might render them first-rate martyrs, and even very tolerable bigots, but hardly, under any circumstances, good courtiers. ”

“ Especially when the one has grown great and has become the religion of many nations, while the other has remained as the inheritance of a lonely people? Why should not the Christian be glad to own that the Jew, even the Pharisee, knew more of the deep things of God than he had supposed, and after a way which was not the Christian way, yet loved the Lord his God with heart and soul and strength and mind,—yes, and his neighbour as himself? The time is surely come when Pharisaism should be recognised as a religion entitled to be judged on its own merits and by [334] its own standards ”

“ However, I will come down to a time when the Pharisees, if they ever became such as the New Testament represents them, must have long acquired that character. Here is a prayer which dates from the second century of our era, and is part of the liturgy still in daily use:—"Lord of the worlds! not trusting in our righteousness, do we cast our entreaties down before Thee, but trusting in Thine abundant mercies. Who are we? What is our life? What is our virtue? What is our righteousness? What is our deliverance? What is our strength? ”

“ The Pharisee stood, and prayed, God I thank thee I am not as other men—so they vainly think, and so they declare: their works are of themselves; they wear Spider’s webs, they make a covering, but not of God’s Spirit; they are stretching themselves upon a bed which is too short, and so all will find who reject the plan of salvation, by Jesus alone.—These make a noise about holiness, and good works—these sound a trumpet and proclaim their own goodness ”

“ The Pharisees who stood before Jesus, and all those who have legitimately descended from them, are glad to hide themselves in the shadow of the dead, to prepare their venom. Cold as a snake’s skin, as the stone of a tomb, neither the heat of the sun, nor the warmth of love, nor the fires of Hell can ever warm them. They know all the words save one, the word of Life.
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.” ”

“ Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people. But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council. Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question. And when he had so said, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees: and the multitude was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both. ”

“ The truth is, the world cannot or will not distinguish between the Pharisee, puffed up with the conceit of his goodness, and for this goodness of his deeming himself the favourite of Heaven, and the humble saint, conscious that in him dwelleth no good thing, and filled with adoring wonder at the mercy of God in making of one so unworthy a monument of His grace. The one is as unlike the other as light is to darkness. ”

“ It appears that the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican ended originally with a question, “ Which went home justified ”-the Pharisee who thanked God because he had been saved from the grosser sins, or the Publican who recognized that his calling was in itself sinful, and without venturing to pass beyond the Court of the Gentiles whom he served-without even promising to abandon their service-prayed for mercy to the God whom he feared? ”

“ The knowledge thus obtained will throw light upon many passages in the New Testament; but it will be chiefly [4] valuable if it helps the reader to realise that the Pharisees were "men of like passions with us," men with souls to be saved, who cared a great deal for the things of the higher life, men who "feared God and worked righteousness," and who pondered deeply upon spiritual problems, though they did not solve them on Christian lines, nor state the answers in Christian terms. ”

“ How, then, could I help you in all things, as it is proper to God to do?
'Shall we, then, who have for our God the great God who hath created the universe with his word, mock at the Gentiles and their gods?
'There were two men who came up here into the temple to pray: the one was a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee drew nigh to the sanctuary, and praying with his face uplifted said: "I give thee thanks, O Lord my God, because I am not as other men, sinners, who do every wickedness, and particularly as this publican; for I fast twice in the week and give tithes of all I possess." ”

“ Pharisee and Paul upon this point is, in appearance, very great; but, in fact, is very small. Both are agreed that there must be the imparting of divine influence to the human soul. With that influence, the quickening of the life of the soul by the divine power and inward presence, the soul is enabled to will the good and to love God. Without that influence it would perish. The Pharisee held that the divine influence was imparted direct from God to the soul, without any intermediary. It was not the Torah that imparted it, but God Himself. The Torah was given to teach him ”

“ It is not self [302] -righteousness which is expressed in that prayer, but the acknowledgment of special obligation, a higher calling, in no way inconsistent with humility and reverence. The prayer in the Parable was doubtless intended by its author to represent Pharisaic piety in an unfavourable light; but the example I have just given is enough to show that a Pharisee would put a different interpretation upon it. ”

“ But, alas! poor Publican, he sneaks, crawls into the temple, and when he comes there, stands behind, aloof, off; as one not worthy to approach the divine presence.
2. The Pharisee at his approach hath his mouth full of many fine things, whereby he strokes himself over the head, and in effect calls himself one of God’s dear sons, that always kept close to his will, abode with him, or, as the prodigal’s brother said, “Lo, these many years do I serve thee; neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment;” Luke xv. ”

“ Then a Pharisee stepped out from the crowd, wrapped his cloak round him with much dignity, and uttered the saying of a Jewish scholar: "Only the righteous man shall stand before God!"
To which Jesus replied; "Have you not heard of the publican who kneeled backwards in the Temple, and did not venture to approach the altar because he was a poor sinner? The Pharisee stands proudly by the altar and prays: 'Lord, I thank thee that I am not wicked like that man in the corner!' But when they went forth from the Temple, the publican's heart was full of grace, and the Pharisee's heart was empty. ”

“ Christianity could by no possibility have remained in union with Pharisaism; what Jesus began, and what Paul completed, was a severance as inevitable as it was painful. But it was painful because it was the dividing, not of the living from the dead, but of the living from the living. The Judaism of the Pharisees, from which Christianity tore itself away, was no obsolete formalism, but a religion having the power to satisfy the spiritual wants of those who were faithful to it. ”

“ And the wise are without knowledge, and the understanding as those who are without discernment. For the multitude of their deeds [301] is nothing, and the days of their life are a breath before Thee" (b. Joma. 87b, mentioned by R. Joḥanan) . Christians usually get their notion of what a Pharisee's prayer was like from Luke xviii. 11, 12; and I do not deny that Pharisees may sometimes have prayed after that manner. Nevertheless, what I have just recited is more true to the real spirit of Pharisaism than the prayer in the Parable. ”

“ Pharisaism is usually judged from the outside, as seen by not very friendly eyes; and, even of those Christians who have studied the Pharisaic literature and who thus know it to some extent from the inside, there are few who seem able to imagine what it must have been to those whose real religion it was. No one but a Jew, of whom it may be said that the Talmud runs in his blood, can fully realise the spiritual meaning of Pharisaism; but sympathy can show even to a Christian much of that meaning, and it is on the strength of that sympathy that I rest my hope of carrying out my present task. ”

“ So much for the Pharisaic conception of God. We will now consider another set of beliefs of theirs upon which a comparison with New Testament teaching is possible and instructive—the Pharisaic ideas about Retribution, reward and punishment, merit. There is no consistent Pharisaic doctrine upon the subject, but rather a comment upon the facts of human experience from different points of view. That man's will is free is one of the axioms of Pharisaism. ”

“ Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? But he was silent.
13 Then the king said to the waiters: Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
14 For many are called, but few are chosen.
15 Then the Pharisees going, consulted among themselves how to insnare him in his speech.
16 And they sent to him their disciples with the Herodians, saying: Master, we know that thou art a true speaker, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou dost not regard the person of men. ”

“ I lay stress on the phrase "naturally, and with no sense of compulsion"; because it is very difficult for the Christian, whose supreme authority is not [316] the Torah, to realise the position of the Pharisee in this matter, and to understand that he did not feel himself to be under constraint. Of course, wherever there is authority, there is that which on occasion will constrain; and the Christian is, to that extent, no less under constraint than the Pharisee. But it is not an oppressive burden, though it may be a hard duty, to submit to an authority which is owned to be supreme. ”

“ His religious belief remained essentially, even incidentally unaltered. A Pharisee he was born, and a Pharisee he continued. The pharisaic doctrine of the resurrection was the corner stone of his system, the beginning, middle and end of his faith, the starting point of his creed. His conception of God was the ordinary conception, unqualified, unmitigated, uncompromised. The divine sovereignty never suffered weakening at his hands. One can hardly open the epistle to the Jewish Christians in Rome, without coming across some tremendous assertion of the absolute supremacy of God. ”

“ But, behind all such utterances, there is the unwavering belief in the direct communion of God with man. The Holy Spirit was naturally most often referred to in the case of the prophets, in whom its manifestation was most conspicuous. But its influence is implied in the fact of prayer, and is nowhere denied in regard to men in general. "Whatever the righteous do, they do it by the Holy Spirit." That is the utterance of a Pharisee (Tanḥ. Vajeḥi, xiii. p. 110a) , and it is the key to the whole Pharisaic conception of the relation of man to God. ”

“ The passages I have quoted, and there are many others, and scores and hundreds of sayings about repentance which all teach the same lesson, are the utterance of Pharisees, of men who were steeped to the lips in Rabbinism, who gloried in the Torah, who delighted in the abundance of its precepts, and the consequent casuistry of the schools, and who felt in their hearts that love of God which they did their best to show forth by serving the Lord with gladness in the doing of His commandments. ”

“ It is necessary to proclaim to the world our abhorrence of the cult whose highest development was the Pharisee. The aim of the religion of Christ is to produce the perfect man, and to root out the Pharisee. When the Church ceases to connive at falsehood and sensualism; when it openly professes its abhorrence of the religion of the Hebrews; then, and then only, will it become the power in the earth which the exponent of Christianity should become. ”

“ The principle here laid down will be sufficient, I believe, to explain the chief characteristic differences between the Pharisaic and the Christian type of mind, disregarding, of course, individual variations. It has been pointed out, in a previous chapter (p. 171) , that Christianity in all its forms centres upon a person, namely, Christ; and that Judaism in all its forms, and Pharisaism most of all, centres upon an idea, namely Torah, and will recognise no person as the object of its devotion, save only God Himself. This is not a proud resistance to the appeal of a great personality ”